


Ups And Downs

by afteriwake



Series: In So Few Words [83]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alcoholic Harry Watson, Backstory, Bisexual Sally Donovan, F/F, F/M, Harry Hits Rock Bottom, Hopeful Ending, Improving Relationships, Past Philip Anderson/Sally Donovan, Rebound relationships, Sherlock Being an Asshole, Sherlock Holmes Has a Heart, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good, Unhealthy Relationships, encouraging Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-18 23:30:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12398490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: Every relationship has its ups and downs, Sally knows. It just seems her relationships areallups and downs...or at least they were. Maybe her and Harry will make for a good change.





	Ups And Downs

**Author's Note:**

> I got asked by **mollydot** on Tumblr to write a Sally/Harry fic, and I used a quote inspiration: " _Happily ever after, or even just together ever after, is not cheesy…It’s the noblest, like, the most courageous thing two people can shoot for._ " — Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl

Ups and downs. It seemed sometimes that’s all her relationships were: a series of ups and downs.

Sally hadn’t put two and two together at first that Harriet Watson was related to John Watson, and if she had she might have steered clear. While she wasn’t so terribly social with His Highness John was a decent bloke. She might have even flirted a bit before she realized he had a Type, and that Type wasn’t her. He was better than Phillip, but if he wouldn’t bite, there were other fish. 

She went through her thing with Phillip, sometimes it being warm and sometimes hot and sometimes tepid and other times downright freezing. It all depended on his wife and their co-workers and her mood. And then Holmes took his swan dive off the roof and e went to pieces and she just couldn’t deal. She had her own guilt to deal with, guilt she initially dealt with by frequenting some of the more trendy gay bars in London.

It wasn’t that it was a secret she was bisexual, not after Holmes opened his mouth when she’d been on the outs with Phillip and had a one night shag with a brainless blonde who hadn’t been as brainless as Sally had thought and taken pictures. Would his highness help her get them back? _Noooo_ , of course not. He’d made his snide remark on her sexuality, in hearing distance of at least ten co-workers, and then he said not to worry.

She didn’t forgive him for that for _years_. Not until he’d come back with the adjustments to his personality.

Not until he realized she was in a more or less serious relationship with Harriet “Harry” Watson. 

Point of fact, he’d been the one to encourage her to stay. An alcoholic girlfriend was harder to deal with in so many more ways than a married lover, but she tried. She loved Harry and she _tried_. She went to support meetings herself, he stayed through the relapses and the promises she would quit the drinking, quit the lying. And when Holmes came back, of course, John got angry and went on a tear and Harry tried to be a good big sister and it backfired terribly, and while Mary was dealing with John Watson she was dealing with Harry Watson. She’d found an ally in Mary, but even Mary couldn’t help her get through _this_ particular relapse, not when Harry went to Ireland and got arrested for public indecency.

But Holmes...he said he could tell she loved Harry, could tell she wanted it to work. He’d pouted his usual high-minded gibberish about dilated pupils and breathing rates and all that, but it didn’t matter. There were those who told her to go, it wasn’t worth fighting to keep the relationship going.

Holmes had seen to the heart of the matter.

He’d slipped her the name and phone number of a rehabilitation center. “When she’s ready,” he said. “You’ll know when that is.”

And it had been a few weeks later, when she’d gotten a call at four in the morning after a long shift with Harry in tears, saying she’d smashed all the bottles of alcohol and she was done. She was absolutely finished, and she needed help. She wanted help if Sally knew where she could go.

She drove her to the center herself.

And now it was better. Oh, there were still ups and downs, but it wasn’t the roller coaster it had been. Six months sober, and Harry was happy. She was happy too, and every morning she smiled under the taped up note on the bathroom mirror that Harry put up to motivate them both to make things work: “Happily ever after, or even just together ever after, is not cheesy…It’s the noblest, like, the most courageous thing two people can shoot for.”

Harry was courageous, and so was she. And Sally was more hopeful every day they’d have better than together ever after. They’d get their happily ever after. It just took time.


End file.
